A review of The Field – Yesterday & Today - Anti/Kompakt

Axel Willner – the Swedish Kompakt recording artist behind the Field – has made great strides in presenting techno in a manner that doesn’t put off the uninitiated. His landmark 2007 debut album From Here We Go Sublime got people in all corners of the music world excited and ready to overcome a fear of dance music and embrace a thumping bass drum and tweaked electronics. For his part, Willher turns in Yesterday & Today - his follow-up – which gestures back to the rockists by expanding his production to include live instrumentation.

Theoretically, the Field shouldn’t really work as a live band. The magic of the Field’s productions and remixes lies in a signature style of digitally warping and looping fragmented and clipped pieces of organic material until he could churn out lushly hypnotic loops that sound like they’re cycling in a washing machine. With such a beautifully manipulated sound it doesn’t seem like Willner’s music would lend itself well to a band jamming out.

Indeed, I had my reservations about this concept, but skeptics need not worry. This isn’t the Field “going rock” or anything equally dreadful. The songs retain Willher’s trademarks and gleams as pristinely as ever, but the template is supplemented with some added layers of texture that accentuate and amplify Willner’s conceptions (there is some great guest work from John Stanier – the mammoth drummer behind Battles, Tomahawk and Helmet).

Perhaps the title of the lead track, “I Have the Moon, You Have the Internet” offers some insight into Willner’s decision to move past a purely laptop-based format and realize the potentiality of integrating elements beyond the circuit boards. The track weaves a familiar skipping pulse through a quilt of delicately pulsating synths and ambrosial ambient layers that seem destined to perpetually soar until the mix is lowered to reveal a breezy steel pan and glockenspiel melody line that takes things back down to earth.

Thus establishes much of the tone of Yesterday and Today. Throughout the album there is often a flux of skyward ascension, cosmic spiraling and wistful earthiness. This means that the wide-reaching trajectory of the record charts quite an exploratory course.

“The More That I Do” – a clear highlight – offers an excellent case study in the Field’s method of song construction. The track builds off of several brief samples from the Cocteau Twins’ extraordinary “Lorelei” and creates a dizzying atmosphere through off-kilter vocal stabs derived from unsuspecting sections of the source track. Meanwhile, shimmering keyboard sequences and powerhouse drums are met with lingering vibes and guitar. Additionally, a tension-building keyboard sample from “Lorelei” is used with admirable precision to signal an oncoming second wind.

Taken side-by-side “The More That I Do” could be construed as a remix of “Lorelei” (there’s a very thin line between Willner’s remixes and originals anyway), but the elements are so transformed that it becomes its own unique entity (the album also features a cover of the Korgis’ song “Everybody’s Got to Learn Somehow” that is similarly transformative).

The Field doesn’t sample hooks or even melodies. Willner’s ears pick up on fractional glimpses within a note to be rearranged and given new meaning. This is his best trick, and it works wonderfully. His debut still stands a slightly more addictive example of his vision, but Yesterday & Today succeeds in fleshing out his sound for a richer and fuller presentation. This should have been tricky to pull off, but the Field proves that he can handle the task. New ideas abound and there is a newly harnessed level of torque, but the record still maintains many of the components that made its predecessor such a success.